BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Complex updates to city codes narrowly approved by the city council this week will limit development at sites on most of the island with the goal of protecting the island's aquifer recharge, according to the city.

Updates to Bainbridge Island’s “critical areas” ordinances – codes that regulate sensitive environmental areas – would require property owners wanting to develop or redevelop in R-0.4, R-1 and R-2 zoning districts to designate an “Aquifer Recharge Protection Area,” or ARPA, on their site if their project would result in greater than 800 square feet of hard surfaces or greater than 7,000 square feet of land-disturbing activity. Those zoning districts make up about 90 percent of the island, according to the city.

If a project met that threshold, an ARPA would be required as part of a city review. Those protection zones must include and maintain all native vegetation up to a maximum of 65 percent of a site.

With some exceptions, those protection zones limit development. Normal maintenance of trees and shrubs is allowed within an ARPA, along with other exemptions: installing accessory structures like solar panels or composting bins, driveways and sheds, among others. Any structure or activity would be allowed in an ARPA zone if the property owner could prove to the city that the project wouldn’t harm groundwater resources.

Subdivision applications will have to hold to the same ARPA requirements, but the zone could be located in a separate tract or within one or more of the lots, according to the city.

“The (ARPA) coupled with the site assessment review is really intended to get people to do context-sensitive design that puts your house where it should be located in terms of natural resource protection, for aquifer recharge protection and for the best use of the site from a natural resource perspective,” city planner Christy Carr told the city council on Tuesday. “It may not be the most desirable place according to some, but the regulation is intended to locate structures and their facilities where they should be located.”

The regulations are intended to be density neutral, so underlying development potential on a site – based on its zoning – would remain the same, Carr said.

Friends of the Farms volunteers work on a trail around Day Road farmland on Bainbridge Island. Updates to the critical areas ordinance requires the preservation of native vegetation in building projects.(Photo: File photo)

The city has been hashing through updates to its critical areas ordinances for months. On Tuesday, a divided city council approved the updates 4-3, with council members Kol Medina, Sarah Blossom, Ron Peltier and Rasham Nassar voting in favor. Michael Scott, Joe Deets and Matthew Tirman voted against.

“It’s not a taking of anybody’s property,” Medina said. “It simply puts the burden of proof on someone, a property owner who wants to do a large development or a development on their property, to show the city that what they want to do will not result in less aquifer recharge. That’s really what it boils down to.”

Scott voted against the updates, calling the broader ordinance confusing and difficult to understand at roughly 30,000 words, about double the size of similar ordinances in comparable communities like Mercer Island and Island County, he said.

“This is a tree protection ordinance under the guise of an aquifer protection ordinance,” he said, suggesting that the city deal with tree protection separately after hiring an arborist to give the city recommendations about its tree policies.

“Not every stand of trees, not every tree is significant,” he said. “We’ve got second and third growth, we’ve got intrusive species, we’ve got non-native species. Let’s deal with trees as trees. I think our trees are hugely important to the character of our island and that’s certainly of public value, but let’s have an expert come in and deal with that as a stand-alone ordinance that is not confused with aquifer recharge.”

Under the updates, on most of the island, removing trees in an area greater than 2,500 square feet will require city review and approval. As part of that review, a property owner would be required to submit a replanting plan.

Tree or vegetation work requiring city review is required to be done by a licensed contractor, forester or certified arborist. That contractor would be required to submit a signed form to the city, noting their knowledge of the city’s regulations.

Among a host of other updates, the city also added a $2,500 minimum fine for major violations of the ordinances.

Even after months of work, city officials said they expect they’ll have to amend the ordinances in the near future.

“I think that no matter how much time we spent on it, we’re probably going to be coming back to amend it,” Blossom said. “The reality is you can’t make it perfect. You’re not going to know what some of the problems are until you start to apply it to the real world. That’s just reality.”